| In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation. A person who reneges on
an oath of loyalty or a pledge of allegiance, and in some
way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. Oran's
Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent
nation]."
History of Treason
Great Britain
The English Statute of Treasons (1350) distinguished
high treason from petty
treason. Petty treason was the murder of one's lawful superior, such as when a
wife killed her husband, or a servant his master. High treason covered acts that
constituted a serious threat to the stability or continuity of the state, including
attempts to kill the king, to counterfeit coins or to wage war against the kingdom. An 18th century law defines four basic types of high
treason:
- When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of our lady his queen, or of their eldest son and
heir
- If a man do violate the king's companion, or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son and
heir
- If a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm
- If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere.
The punishment for treason was an often extended and especially cruel death (treason was still theoretically punishable by
death in Britain until
1998, although the last death sentence for treason was given in 1945, and the last hanging carried out in 1946). The law was used in England to suppress any resistance to government policy and it was not reformed until the
19th century.
The United States
To avoid the abuses of the English law, treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution. Article Three
defines treason as only levying war against the United States or "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort," and
requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court for conviction. This safeguard may
not be foolproof since Congress could pass a statute creating treason-like offences
with different names (such as sedition, bearing arms against the state, etc.) which
do not require the testimony of two witnesses, and have a much wider definition than Article Three treason. For example, some
well-known spies have generally been convicted of espionage rather than treason.
In the United States Code the penalty ranges from "shall suffer
death" to "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be
incapable of holding any office under the United States."
In the history of the United States there have been fewer than forty federal prosecutions for treason and even fewer
convictions. Several men were convicted of treason in connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by George Washington. The most famous treason trial, that of Aaron Burr in 1807, resulted in acquittal. Politically motivated attempts
to convict opponents of the Jeffersonian Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 all failed. Significantly, after the American Civil War, no person involved with the Confederate States of America was charged with
treason, and only one major Confederate official, the commandant of the Andersonville prison, who was charged with war
crimes, was charged with anything at all.
Treason has become largely a wartime phenomenon in the 20th century, and
the treason cases of World Wars One and Two were of minor significance. Most states have provisions in their constitutions or statutes similar to
those in the U.S. Constitution. There have been only two successful prosecutions for treason on the state level, that of Thomas Dorr in Rhode Island and
that of John Brown in Virginia.
In 1964, an author named John A.
Stormer wrote a book considered a backstairs political classic and titled it None Dare Call It
Treason—the book unexpectedly sold seven million copies with little or no advertising. It was revised and reissued
by the original author in 1990. The title phrase has been reused and paraphrased many times
in the ensuing forty years, and has become part of popular
culture.
Within the United States, the accusation of treason has been leveled at those who dissented against the government's foreign policy, especially during military actions. Most of the time these accusations are not made by people within the government. Rather private
individuals - such as talk show hosts or other media personalities - will make a charge of treason against a person or group of
people who dissent against government policy. It should be noted that in these cases the accusations made almost never meet the
Constitutional definition of treason.
List of alleged or convicted traitors by country
Canada
China
France
Netherlands
United Kingdom
United States
Other
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